Degelen () is a mountain massif in the

Zhanasemey District Zhanasemey District (, ) is a district of Abai Region in eastern Kazakhstan. The administrative center is Semey city, although it is not part of the district. History The Zhanasemey District was first established in 1928, at the time of the Kazak ...

Abai Region Abai Region (, ) is a Regions of Kazakhstan, region of Kazakhstan. President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev announced on 16 March 2022 that the region would be created. The area split off from East Kazakhstan Region when Tokayev's bill came into force on 8 ...

Kazakhstan Kazakhstan, officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a landlocked country primarily in Central Asia, with a European Kazakhstan, small portion in Eastern Europe. It borders Russia to the Kazakhstan–Russia border, north and west, China to th ...

.''Kazakhstan National Encyclopedia'' / Ch. ed. B.O. Jakyp. — Almaty: « Kazakh encyclopedia» ZhSS, 2011. ISBN 9965-893-64-0 (T.Z.), ISBN 9965-893-19-5

Semey Semey (; , formerly known as Semipalatinsk ( ) until 2007 and as Alash-Qala ( ) from 1917 to 1920, is a city in eastern Kazakhstan, in the Kazakh part of Siberia. When Abai Region was created in 2022, Semey became its administrative centre. I ...

city, former Semipalatinsk, lies about to the ENE of the Degelen mountain area. The Balapan nuclear test site lies to the northeast.

History

At the time of the

Kazakh SSR The Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic, also known as Soviet Kazakhstan, the Kazakh SSR, KSSR, or simply Kazakhstan, was one of the transcontinental constituent republics of the Soviet Union (USSR) from 1936 to 1991. Located in northern Centr ...

Degelen was part of the

Semipalatinsk Test Site The Semipalatinsk Test Site or Semipalatinsk-21 (; ), also known as "The Polygon", was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons. It is located in Zhanasemey District, Abai Region, Kazakhstan, south of the valley of the Ir ...

complex. Around hundred horizontal tunnels were bored into the mountain to carry out

nuclear test Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of their explosion. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to signal strength. Bec ...

s operated by the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

armed forces. The mountain massif was the location chosen for the majority of the subcritical and supercritical tests. 215 underground nuclear explosions were carried out. In 1991, following the

dissolution of the Soviet Union The Soviet Union was formally dissolved as a sovereign state and subject of international law on 26 December 1991 by Declaration No. 142-N of the Soviet of the Republics of the Supreme Soviet of the Soviet Union. Declaration No. 142-Н of ...

, the site was taken over by the government of Kazakhstan. The tunnels were closed in 1993. The abandoned electrical installations and the rails that had been used to transport the nuclear devices deep into the earth became a target of scavengers. Pillaging of copper and iron went on despite the safety measures at the site. Some of the tunnels were stocked with undetonated plutonium and they had to be sealed more thoroughly as part of a plan to eliminate nuclear weapons testing infrastructure in the mountain range.

Geography

Degelen is part of the

Kazakh Upland The Kazakh Uplands or the Kazakh Hummocks, known in Kazakh language, Kazakh as the ( , ; ), is a large peneplain formation extending throughout the central and eastern regions of Kazakhstan.

system (Saryarka). It is a compact-shaped range of moderate altitude located in the northeastern sector of the highlands. The abandoned village named Degelen after the massif lies off the northwestern slopes and the

Myrzhyk The Myrzhyk Range (), also spelled Murzhik (), is a mountain massif in the Zhanasemey District, Abai Region, Kazakhstan. The northwestern corner of the range is in Karkaraly District, Karaganda Region.''Nature of Kazakhstan: Encyclopedia'' / Gener ...

massif lies to the WNW. Several peaks in the Degelen exceed ; the highest point is a high summit. There are many fresh water springs in the mountains and the slopes are cut by ravines. A deep valley that opens to the east runs across the middle of the range dividing it into two segments: Ulken Degelen, the northern one, stretches from northwest to the southeast for . Kishi Degelen, the southern one, is wide and is almost as large. The Kalybai pass is at the western end of the valley. North flowing river Karabulak and east flowing Uzynbulak have their sources in the Degelen.

Google Earth Google Earth is a web mapping, web and computer program created by Google that renders a 3D computer graphics, 3D representation of Earth based primarily on satellite imagery. The program maps the Earth by superimposition, superimposing satelli ...

Peakvisor -Gora Degelen
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Flora

The slopes of the massif are covered with

steppe In physical geography, a steppe () is an ecoregion characterized by grassland plains without closed forests except near rivers and lakes. Steppe biomes may include: * the montane grasslands and shrublands biome * the tropical and subtropica ...

vegetation, including

sedge The Cyperaceae () are a family of graminoid (grass-like), monocotyledonous flowering plants known as wikt:sedge, sedges. The family (biology), family is large; botanists have species description, described some 5,500 known species in about 90 ...

sagebrush Sagebrush is the common name of several woody and herbaceous species of plants in the genus ''Artemisia (plant), Artemisia''. The best-known sagebrush is the shrub ''Artemisia tridentata''. Sagebrush is native to the western half of North Amer ...

and

fescue ''Festuca'' (fescue) is a genus of flowering plants belonging to the grass family Poaceae (subfamily Pooideae). They are evergreen or herbaceous perennial tufted grasses with a height range of and a cosmopolitan distribution, occurring on every ...

. The narrow valleys have dense bush growth and

birch A birch is a thin-leaved deciduous hardwood tree of the genus ''Betula'' (), in the family Betulaceae, which also includes alders, hazels, and hornbeams. It is closely related to the beech- oak family Fagaceae. The genus ''Betula'' contains 3 ...

aspen Aspen is a common name for certain tree species in the Populus sect. Populus, of the ''Populus'' (poplar) genus. Species These species are called aspens: * ''Populus adenopoda'' – Chinese aspen (China, south of ''P. tremula'') * ''Populus da ...

-birch, and poplar-aspen forest. The soil and water of the area are still under

radioactive contamination Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of Radioactive decay, radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases (including the human body), where their presence is uni ...

. In order to assess recovery, experimental zones have been planted with poplar,

silver birch ''Betula pendula'', commonly known as silver birch, warty birch, European white birch, or East Asian white birch, is a species of tree in the family Betulaceae, native to Europe and parts of Asia, though in southern Europe, it is only found ...

Tatar maple ''Acer tataricum'', the Tatar maple or Tatarian maple, is a species of maple widespread across central and southeastern Europe and temperate Asia, from Austria and Turkey, and in some circumscriptions, with a disjunct population in eastern Asia in ...

and

elm Elms are deciduous and semi-deciduous trees comprising the genus ''Ulmus'' in the family Ulmaceae. They are distributed over most of the Northern Hemisphere, inhabiting the temperate and tropical- montane regions of North America and Eurasia, ...

seedlings.Study of natural biota of and biologic recovery possibilities for closed tunnels of the Degelen mountain complex
/ref>

References

External links

*{{commonscat-inline
Plutonium Mountain - The National Security ArchiveTours to Semipalatinsk nuclear test site. Tours in East KazakhstanOmega-1 Seismic Experiment at Degelen
Kazakh Uplands Nuclear test sites in Kazakhstan Soviet nuclear weapons testing Russian nuclear test sites

History

Geography

Flora

See also

References

External links